Plane used for CIA renditions also smuggled drugs

By GottaLaff

How efficient of them. Why limit yourselves to one measly illegal act when you can go for broke?

Nearly a year after it went down in the Yucatan jungle, a Mexican newspaper has obtained documentation that a US-owned plane previously used by the CIA for renditions and trips to and from Guantanamo Bay was also used to smuggle cocaine. Reports Agency France Press:

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.

The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.

The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects."

It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.

It also said the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) logbook registered that the plane had traveled between US territory and the US military base in Guantanamo.

To give credit where it's due, the Fort Worth Star Telegram's Jay Root first broke the story last year (reporting with Kevin Hall of McClatchy News), and the web-based Mad Cow News was all over the case after it came out. According to MCN reports, this plane is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of US-registered planes smuggling dope for Mexican cartels. Even so, the story almost immediately died down here in the States, though obviously the Mexican press continues to investigate.

And from Mad Cow News, it seems a Bush fundraiser is linked to the CIA drug/rendition plane:

Moreover at the same time the Bush Ranger extraordinaire Stephen Adams owned the Gulfstream (N987SA) in 1999 and 2000, he was personally buying over $1 million of billboard ads for George W. Bush for his 2000 Presidential election bid.

Bush's fellow conjoined triplets should be proud.

H/t: Fernando